Whether you play online or in-person, virtual tabletops are indispensable tools to immerse your group in gameplay and streamline combat and exploration. D&D Beyond has two VTTs to help you prep less so you can play more: Maps, a 2D VTT that seamlessly syncs to your D&D Beyond library, and Sigil, an immersive 3D VTT with deep integration to D&D Beyond and world-building and mini-making tools.
In this article, we'll break down how both of these tools can supplement your games so you can focus on the adventure at hand!
Maps: The 2D Virtual Tabletop (VTT)
The Maps 2D VTT is designed to make it easy to bring you and your friends together for tactical adventures, whether you're playing in-person or online.
Play Today with a Master Tier Subscription
Master Tier subscribers get access to the Maps 2D VTT in addition to the other benefits of their subscription, including book content sharing with party members, unlimited character slots, perks, and early access to book releases.
Seamlessly Sync to Your D&D Beyond Library
You can seamlessly add maps and monster tokens from the books in your D&D Beyond library to your Maps digital playspace. The Token Browser lets you filter monsters by creature type, size, Challenge Rating, and source, making it easy to find the perfect foe for your encounter.
Your Maps session is linked to your campaign, so players can join effortlessly without a subscription. You can add player tokens with ease, and every roll from their D&D Beyond character sheet automatically appears in the Game Log, alongside rolls from monster stat blocks in Maps. This keeps everything in one place, so you can track every Dexterity (Stealth) check, saving throw, and Critical Hit together!
You can also make Maps work for you, no matter how you run your sessions! You can upload custom maps to bring each unique session to life, whether using maps from official sources, ones you've found online, or hand-drawn creations.
Streamline Your Games with Handy Tools
Maps is packed with features to make running encounters smoother than ever. With these tools at your fingertips, you can focus less on logistics and more on the adventure!
- Fog of War: This feature lets you control what your players can see, allowing you to reveal new areas as they explore and keep the unknown shrouded in mystery.
- Ruler and Pointer: These tools help you and your players measure distances, plan movement, and strategize your next move.
- Overlays: These add extra layers of detail to your maps, letting you track environmental effects, hazards, or area-of-effect spells at a glance.
Prep and Run Encounters with Ease
Maps gives you the tools to build and run your encounters, whether you're planning ahead or improvising on the fly. The Maps combat encounter tool uses the XP budget method from the new Dungeon Master's Guide to craft balanced battles that will challenge your party.
Then, you can easily start combat with all the tokens on the map with a single click, making sure your session doesn't lose steam when you dramatically declare, “Roll for Initiative!”
You can also track Hit Points and roll directly from monster stat blocks, keeping turns action-packed and running smoothly.
Sigil: The Immersive 3D Virtual Tabletop (VTT)
With the Sigil 3D VTT, you can experience D&D in an epic immersive environment. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, Sigil provides intuitive tools to run your game, build your world, and create miniatures.
This VTT features deep integration with D&D Beyond and can allow you to connect to your whole party for a multiplayer experience!
Play Today with a Free D&D Beyond Account
You can dive into Sigil with a free D&D Beyond account* and experience its immersive VTT, world-building, and token-making tools. You can gain the ability to host multiplayer games and unlock additional bonus content, builder kits, and mini customization options with a Master Tier subscription.
* If your D&D Beyond account was created using Apple, Google, or Twitch, you will be prompted to create a Wizards account when launching Sigil.
Immerse Your Table in Epic Dungeons & Dragons Adventures
The Sigil 3D VTT allows you to craft breathtaking digital environments for your campaign. From deadly dungeons and creepy crypts to whimsical fey forests, build immersive locations using an extensive library of assets, textures, and lighting effects.
For those just starting or looking for a quick adventure, Sigil comes with the introductory adventure Danger at Dunbarrow. This premade adventure is perfect for groups new to the Sigil VTT to run an immersive session with minimal preparation.
When you start hosting a game with your Master Tier subscription, everyone in your group can join in the fun. Each player can connect through their free D&D Beyond account, making it easy to integrate characters and stats. Players can view and interact with the maps you create in real-time, so you can share in the fun together!
Bring Your Game to Life
Sigil's mini builder tool lets you create and customize 3D representations of your characters by adjusting your miniatures' poses, armor, weapons, and accessories to bring out their unique personality!
When it comes time to harness the forces of magic, Sigil brings spells to life with dynamic animations. Watch as your Sorcerer blankets the battlefield in fire or Cleric channels divine energy to bolster your allies' strength.
Sigil also includes digital dice that roll across the 3D environment, allowing your party to celebrate every successful hit and rally around every near miss.
Start Playing Today
Whether you're looking for a simple, streamlined way to run tactical encounters or an immersive 3D environment to bring your world to life, D&D Beyond has you covered.
Maps provides a fast and easy way to integrate battle maps, track Initiative, and manage encounters, making it perfect for both in-person and online sessions. Sigil, on the other hand, offers a full digital sandbox with world-building tools, animated spell effects, and customizable miniatures, bringing the magic of the tabletop to a shared virtual space.
Try them both and see how they can help you prep less so you can play more today!

Mike Bernier is the founder of Arcane Eye, a site focused on providing useful tips and tricks to all those involved in the world of D&D. Outside of writing for Arcane Eye, Mike spends most of his time playing games, hiking with his partner, and tending the veritable jungle of houseplants that have invaded his house.
Have we been told if Project Sigil is also coming to Mac?
No clear explanation of how they differ and why you might choose one over the other.
I have a mac so ....
it sounds like you don't need a subscription to use Sigil with DND beyond. does this mean it's free or are there still some purchases that need to be made?
Maps is a useful tool envisioned by a product team who are expert developers AND RPG fans, while Sigil is an Immersive 3D Idea From An Executive On How To Make Money, that has a product team of developers and RPG fans doing their best to make it work.
Why would I use Maps when Roll20 and Foundry exist?
There's an easy choice for me of one over the other. The Sigil VTT is slow and laggy for me. But beyond that, it's far too much trying to pretend to be a human-run dungeon video game. The more you take the imagination away from the players, the less it becomes amazing and the more it becomes... Baldur's Gate.
Please do not move away from the Maps tool in favour of a flash in the pan shift to video games.
Also, the Encounter Difficulty in Maps is broken.
How do they not make it easy to find system requirements for Sigil?? The webpage says "Anyone with a D&D Beyond account can download and play," but that's apparently not the case if you have a Mac.
Adding to the list of Mac users that want to try Project Sigil.
First Google result for "project sigil requirements": https://dndbeyond-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/articles/26423004178196-Sigil-FAQ
Definitely. Maps is for playing D&D, if I wanted to play a PC version of D&D, I'd play Baulder's Gate 3.
As a Foundry Fanboy myself, there a plenty of reasons why u would choose one vtt over the other. For maps the biggest factors is convenience. Especially if u own a lot of your stuff on d&d beyond (and book+beyond bundles sadly are maps exclusive). There are plenty of good vtt options, both free paid, self hosted, cloud...
Make your choice and sometimes your expectations of a vtt may change later on. (Many start with roll20 and convert too foundry later for example).
So if u are already in the beyond golden cage want a lightweight easy to use vtt maps is ok.
That isn't really a decider for Maps vs Sigil though. They're both DDB.
It's definitely Maps for me. Sigil is really slow and janky on my computer, and half my players are on Macs. Plus it seems pretty complicated to put together a map--is the plan to eventually import the existing adventures into Sigil, with the map locations and monsters ready to go? That could be something I might be interested in at some point (after it's available on Mac, I can upgrade my PC, and play online more than twice a year).
Is the regular encounter builder every getting out of beta? I run home games, so I don't need online maps, just a tool for tracking encounters connected to the content I own.
Is Sigil open to the public yet?
I feel like Sigil will work better for my online games, but VTT is more useful for planning out in-person games, or just running encounters in-person. That's just my opinion though.
Exactly, or Inkarnate.
I have asked this question before, and never have I gotten an answer from WotC. Is WotC going to enable the use of digital custom miniatures from providers such as heroforge? I like the 3d immersion better than the 2d vtt maps. And that is worth a little more money. However, the 2 dimensional tokens are usable. If WotC makes a 3d immersion map capability, there will be a demend for customized character 3d model's as well as stock monsters. Are there going to be a part of this system? Personally, I want tomstart designing my 3d dndbeyond character models now.
I am not paying more money to have another on-line account, and then be forced to spends even more money buying new digital copies of books I already own because those greedy bastards want me to buy my digital copies from them. I can't use the digital books I already own on their servers. I have to buy my digit books from them to use on their servers. As if their ridiculous subscription fees were not high enough as it is. Most the folks in my community share resources to play. So if D&DBeyond adds these services to this site, for a more affordable subscription fee, then the folks where I live will jump at it.